Modern cellular telecommunications networks are divided into cells which service mobile stations (mobile phones) in a defined area. The cells each contain a base station which exchanges voice and control information over respective voice and control channels with mobile stations located within the cell's coverage area. The control channel performs the function of providing access for mobile subscribers to services provided by cells within a cellular telecommunications network, and can be either analog or digital.
In a typical cellular network, multiple base stations communicate with a mobile switching center, and multiple mobile switching centers in turn communicate with each other and with a home location register. A widely used protocol for communication among components of the network is the Telecommunications Industries Association IS-41 specification, hereby incorporated by reference herein.
Today's telecommunications service providers offer subscribers a great deal of flexibility in managing their telephone calls, offering them such features as call waiting or long-distance call blocking. Additionally, a subscriber may be permitted to forward a call to another number or have access to voice mail services. Each subscriber is permitted to draw up at least one list of desired features which, when appended to other information about the subscriber such as passwords or identification numbers, constitutes the subscriber's profile.
Mobile stations employed to place or receive telephone calls usually have only one associated subscriber, but possibly several users, including the subscriber in question. In a scenario such as a household, a mobile station may often change hands among these different users, each one not necessarily having the same needs or level of authorization as the others. For example, if an adult subscriber whose profile does not include the long-distance call blocking feature lends the phone to a child user, the adult subscriber may decide to invoke this and perhaps other features while possibly desiring to remove certain features from his or her current profile. Presently, in order to achieve this, the adult subscriber must call his or her service provider and request an agent to access his or her profile in order to effect the required changes. This procedure is cumbersome, and presents an inconvenience to both subscriber and service provider.
Moreover, a particular subscriber might be the sole user of a mobile station, but may desire different features to be active in different geographical areas or during different times of day. In this and many other realistic situations, adding or removing numerous features, especially on a frequent basis, is a tedious and inconvenient process.
As competition and advancing technology drive to increase the number of available features, considerable effort will be required on the part of subscribers wishing to alternate among various lists of desired features. Although there are no known prior art teachings of a solution to the aforementioned deficiencies and shortcomings such as that disclosed herein, a number of prior art references exist that discuss related subject matter, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,103 (Foti), and Published International PCT Application No. W.O. 97/20441 (Tom). Each of these references is discussed briefly below.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,103 (Foti) discloses a method of providing a subscriber in a cellular telephone network with information from a subscriber device profile. A mobile station sends a request for the service profile to a home location register. Once the profile information is received, it is displayed on the visual display of the mobile station. However, the subscriber is not given the opportunity to possess multiple profiles at the home location register.
Published International PCT Application No. W.O. 97/20441 (Tom) discloses a method for prioritizing greetings to a subscriber depending on which one of a plurality of service zones encompasses the subscriber. There are several subscriber zone profiles defined and stored in a home location register, and a prioritization method is provided for the case when service zones overlap geographically. Although multiple profiles are available, the subscriber cannot change profiles without actual physical displacement.
It would thus be a distinct advantage to have a method in which a subscriber is able to rapidly change the set of currently active features to another, not necessarily disjoint, set of features. That is to say, a subscriber should be able to easily switch between multiple profiles.